The colour of the universe is not beige...

[tblaxland]

...its Cosmic Latte.

Read all about it (and see it): http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091101.html

 

[garyw]

It seems that most of my house is painted a similar colour as the universe - is this some sort of cosmic message? :lol:

 

[Andy44]

I thought it was green.

 

[eveningsky339]

First I thought that the picture wasn't working, but then I realized that I have difficulty seeing the color because I am color-deficient. Apparently the average color of the universe is difficult for me to see.

 

[tblaxland]

I thought it was green.

So did they, but they made a mistake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_latte

Apparently the average color of the universe is difficult for me to see.

:lol:

 

[Eagle]

Well that color at least makes sense. Maximum R, Lots of G, less B. Exactly what you would expect for any blackbody radiation with a temperature in the lower end of the spectrum towards infrared.

Also the wiseguys that came up with the color might have overexposed red. Also, I'm skeptical of their brightness choice.

 

[tblaxland]

Also, I'm skeptical of their brightness choice.

Given that they came up with that colour based on the spectra of large numbers of galaxies, I would suggest that saturation was probably at the whim of the researcher.

 

[JamesG]

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CIBR/

The color of the universe is the far infrared and microwave cosmic background radiation. It unfortunately does not have a color palette visible to the human eye.

 

[Andy44]

The color of the universe is the far infrared and microwave cosmic background radiation. It unfortunately does not have a color palette visible to the human eye.

If that were true than you wouldn't be able to see anything when you look into the sky. Clearly when we say "color" (or "colour" for our trans-Atlantic friends) you, being human, are speaking of the visible wavelengths. The universe has a visible color, anyone who looks at a clear night sky can confirm this.

The Sun emits much more radiation than just visible light, including gammas and X-rays, but we still say it's yellow, because that's what we can see. The non-visible stuff isn't a "color" at all, because the word color has no meaning once you get beyond the visible spectrum. Likewise, the color of plutonium is greyish silver, not gamma.

 

[JamesG]

Just because human beings are limited to sensing a very narrow section of the EM spectrum doesn't mean it isn't there. If the human eye could see further into the infrared or ultraviolet our perception of the universe would be much differerent (space wouldn't be inky black for instance).

So the TRUE color of the universe isn't what we percieve it as.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yes and no. Our color perception of the various stars would be different. We'd probably see red dwarves alot better. We'd probably see nebula and such alot differently. But space would probably still look inky black, because while the brightest frequency of the CMB is in the microwave range, it would still be very, very, very dim.

---------- Post added at 11:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:11 AM ----------

Take a look at this page. It gives a bit more explanation.

http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/

It's interesting to note that they de-redshifted all the light before calculating the color.

 

[eveningsky339]

:lol:

You laugh now, but it won't be so funny when I embark on my interstellar expedition to gather knowledge for humanity and have nothing to record.

Speaking of latte's, I wonder if Starbucks has a Cosmic Latte. Nothing quite like the sweet taste of cosmic radiation to carbonize you in the morning.

 

[T.Neo]

The non-visible stuff isn't a "color" at all, because the word color has no meaning once you get beyond the visible spectrum.

And if you met a UV-detecting alien species, for example? They would regard UV light as a "colour".

 

[JamesG]

yes. Humans will probably eventually be able to see off the ends of the visible specrum, either by biological or cybernetic means. Will be interesting about how the human brain will get trained or adapt to percieve those colors. Right now, we use substitute colors for the wavelenghts our eyes can't register, such as the false color images produced by FLIR or thermal imagers.

The work being done on sensory disorders (seeing sounds and tasting colors etc) will shed alot of light on how the brain processes information and what we will be able to get away with in hooking it up to stimuli that it wasn't evolved to recieve.

 

[T.Neo]

The work being done on sensory disorders (seeing sounds and tasting colors etc) will shed alot of light on how the brain processes information and what we will be able to get away with in hooking it up to stimuli that it wasn't evolved to recieve.

Tasting UV light? :rofl:

Seriously though, I'd regard sense of "unseen" spectra to be similar to a colourblind person seeing colours that they wouldn't normally be able to see, or a person blind from birth having their sight repaired.

 

[Ghostrider]

And if you met a UV-detecting alien species, for example? They would regard UV light as a "colour".

But then you couldn't fool them with fake bills.

 

[T.Neo]

But then you couldn't fool them with fake bills.

Unless you faked the UV identification system.

 

[Andy44]

And if you met a UV-detecting alien species, for example? They would regard UV light as a "colour".

Yes, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon.

But she doesn't, and there are no aliens using the human word "color", and the word was invented by people who only knew the visible spectrum.

 

[T.Neo]

But she doesn't, and there are no aliens using the human word "color", and the word was invented by people who only knew the visible spectrum.

Yes, but they would use an equivalent word to describe both ultraviolet and "visible" light (if, of course, they could sense both).

A wavelength is a wavelength, one shouldn't grant an exclusive status to one just because it is visible to your eyes only.

 

[Linguofreak]

It is actually somewhat useful to speak of "colors" outside of the visible spectrum (at least those lying close to it), because there are some animals that can see ultraviolet, and I think there may be a few that can see into the near infrared, and when talking about what such animals can see, it is useful to speak of "colors" outside the visible range. (In fact, the human retina can see into the near ultraviolet, but the lens absorbs these frequencies. So people who have had their lens removed for some reason (such as an eye injury), can see into the ultraviolet (albeit very blurrily). To them, the visible ultraviolet frequencies would appear as a very deep shade of violet, since they'd be picked up by the same cones that pick up blue and violet in a normal individual.